An Art & Theater Fusion

Take a stroll through an art gallery, and you just might find yourself humming a Sondheim tune.

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In the first part of Friday's Up to Date, we talk with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Associate Curator of European Art, Nicole Myers and Executive Director of Musical Theater Heritage George Harter about where art and theater fuse Seurat’s classic, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, with Broadway numbers in the musical Sunday in the Park with George.

Check out this video from KCUR's Julie Denesha:

Nicole R. Myers is associate curator of European painting and sculpture at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She recently curated Rodin: Sculptures from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation in addition to serving as curator-in-charge of Monet’s Water Lilies. A specialist in 18th- and 19th-century French art, Myers has published on wide-ranging topics including Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, and women artists of the 19th century. Recent publications include an essay on Gustave Courbet’s nudes in the exhibition catalogue Courbet / Clésinger: oeuvres croisées (Musée Courbet, Ornans, 2011). Prior to joining the Nelson-Atkins in 2011, Myers held positions as a curatorial research assistant at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Saint Louis Art Museum. She also served as a curatorial consultant to the Denver Art Museum on the exhibition Becoming Van Gogh, which opens fall 2012. Myers is currently a doctoral candidate in Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she completed a master’s degree in 2006. She holds a bachelors degree in Art History and French from Washington University in St. Louis.

George Harter began in radio in 1976 at KCUR, working first as a late night jazz host and then as news producer. He majored in theater and completed studies at the University of Kansas. Hartere joined the announcing staff at KXTR, the commercial classical station in Kansas City, in 1980 and created "A Night on the Town" a program celebrating the music of Broadway and film scores. In 1997, he founded Musical Theater Heritage a non-profit production company, in order to develop "A Night on the Town" for national syndication on the WFMT Fine Arts Network.